Newport, June 17, 2016: Is this a tough-guy contest, or is it meant to be fun? After Chris Museler vents his concerns when the Newport Bermuda Race forecast is for strong winds and rough seas, two friends step up and offer some reassuring advice.
As I put on my sailing gear on that morning, I was very deliberate, slow even. As other sailors were heading down to the boats, a media guy said to me, “C’mon Chris, toughen up, you’re going.” That was last December, standing atop the very yacht club all today’s Newport Bermuda Race sailors are aiming for: the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club.
But that wasn’t an ocean race. It was the Amlin International Moth Regatta and it was blowing 20-25 knots with higher gusts. Some of the best sailors in the world were standing, arms folded, trying to decide if they should go racing in their ultra-light, solo hydrofoilers. Some stayed on shore, many raced and many of them didn’t finish. I dragged my feet long enough until another friend said, “Don’t go. It won’t be pretty for you.” I didn’t go.
As sailors, we believe we are prepared for anything, so when your gut is telling you something different, it’s a strange feeling. Knowing that Olympic Gold Medalists that day in December were a little hesitant made me feel just a little better.
Today’s scenario--as we in our boat, Simon Says Oakcliff, await the start of the 50th Bermuda Race--is different in many ways than mine at the Amlin. The race that starts at Newport this Friday afternoon is not in a protected bay. It's a 635-mile ocean race. Crews have trained, boats have been inspected, and best practices have been discussed: chain of command, safety protocol, who does what in the reefing process, who’s in charge when “all-hands” is shouted down the companionway. . . and all the rest. After all this preparation, why do we take pause at a forecast of 30-40 knots of wind, which is generally quite manageable on most boats? The reason for our worry is the forecast showing a low that will push a northeast wind directly into the steaming ocean current that defines this race—the Gulf Stream.
Seamanship and Core Values
I got some good advice from my friend Rob Windsor, of the J-42 Arrowhead sailing in the Double-Handed Division. “Four knots of tide against 30 knots of breeze makes for a shitty sea state,” Rob told me after this morning’s weather briefing. Even though the cold-core low pressure system that racers are concerned about has yet to develop, Windsor says these concerns are valid: “Waves break boats, wind doesn’t break boats.”
Windsor knows about bad weather. He is a senior member of the elite Class 40 group of ocean racers in the US, having crisscrossed the Atlantic a dozen times in heinous conditions. he and his co-skipper, Steve Berlack, came out of today’s weather briefing with a philosophy that we should all understand because it puts the practical side of seamanship and also the race’s core values up front.
“This isn’t a tough guy contest,” Windsor told me. “It’s supposed to be fun. For 99 percent of the sailors here, this is a hobby.”
“It’s going to be light tonight and tomorrow,” he said. “Anyone can download weather files and most won’t reach the Stream until Sunday. That’s what Steve told me, and I agree. If it turns into a tropical storm or something like that, we can turn around and come back in nice breeze.” What a novel idea! Then I remembered Rich du Moulin’s comment at the April Safety at Sea Seminar: “Getting to port is mandatory, but which port you end up at is optional. “
Just about 36 hours from now the fleet could be parked up at the edge of the system forecasters are eying. The Arrowhead team is happily ready to turn on the engine to avoid something that may be much more than a “thrash to the Onion Patch.”
It seems strange in an ocean race to turn around. But, like me in Bermuda, we have to make decisions and be comfortable with them. I like Rob Windsor’s Arrowhead approach. Maybe that will teach us all a new philosophy in ocean racing that takes the edge off. . . just a bit.
